I think most agree that this years JavaOne had turned a corner. The dark cloud over the future of Java under Oracle’s stewardship had lifted and there was a lot more interesting things happening with the platform. The hot topic was Java 7, and its EE counterpart. Walking away from the conference I had some final thoughts:

– Cloud: many developers don’t understand cloud/PaaS yet and as such are naturally skeptical. Heroku, CloudBees and MuleSoft were at JavaOne to help spread the word, but it is still an early proposition for the Java crowd.

– Polyglot: the most interesting thing for me about the Java platform is that its not just about Java. I would have liked to have seen more dedication to the new languages on the JVM such as Scala and Closure.

– Mobile: Java doesn’t do mobile well. I think its time to throw the in the J2ME towel and focus on the core strengths of the JVM. I know people believe there is a 3rd place after Android and iPhone Objective-C but put HTML 5 in the mix and there isn’t much room for anything else.

– Focus: JavaOne has historically been centered around the language itself. I’d like to see more focused tracks around the trends in the market place and how Java/JVM languages fit in with newer technologies. You can find some of this content, but you need to dig for it.

– Best Practices: The development landscape is no longer about a single language; I would like to see more content for understanding where Java fits in and how to work with Java in mixed environments.

I did want to say thanks to everyone that stopped by the booth, team enjoyed talking to you all and taking your questions and feedback, all very helpful.

Finally, I had two talks this year, one cloud-centric on integration architecture centric. I think both of my talks were well received, I needed a much bigger room for the integration talk ESB or not to ESB, this seems like a popular area where more guidance is needed. I believe both talk were recorded so should pop up soon, for now here are my slides:

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2 Responses to “JavaOne 2011: final thoughts”

Excellent points, re: polyglot and mobile. Java doesn’t need to “own” the world – but support the trends and organize the rabbel. HTML 5 is a favorite and Java should (and I believe starting to) embrace and become seamless with it. Would have liked to seen more or learned more about OpenStack…..

Yes OpenStack would have been a good topic. For 10 years Java has had a rich eco-system, but it was all pure Java. Its time to open up and embrace surrounding technologies and help developers navigate the wider landscape.

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